You find a creative way to beat an encounter.
You do it once and it's really cool and rewarding.
You do it twice and it's still fun.
You do it three times and it's just another game mechanic.
That in my opinon is the most fundamental problem with Larians combat gimmicks. Every gimmick, when done over and over, becomes just another mechanic. Shoving someone off a cliff isn't creative anymore when you do it for the 27th time. It's just the way the game is played.
What I would like to see is specific fights having specific gimmicks. Getting a barrel in place and blowing up your enemies shouldn't happen all the time. It should only be possible for a small number of fights, so it feels special. Same with shoving someone off a cliff. Maybe that only works if they land in lava or deep water, which isn't found everywhere.
You can't have "a moment" every fight. If everything is special, nothing is. Less is more in this case.
This would also help to bridge the gap between DOS2 fans and 5e players.
Normal fight: Closer to 5e
Special fight: Closer to DOS2
Largely agreed. On barrels specifically I just dislike their presence. Faerun is not some post industrial dystopia where barrels of oil / explosive brandy / gunpowder are hanging around. Oil barrels are an annoying anachronism. And the commonness of smokepower is at odds with Forgotten Realms lore -- the goblins have all the smokepowder ever produced on Toril.
And those anachronisms really stand out because the art team has been fantastic at avoiding the common anachronisms of medieval fantasy art -- no square hay bales, no factory produced sewer pipes . . .
And yes, once discovered those tactics become:
1. Stale. Throwing a void bulb to launch someone off a cliff is just a standard tactic. To their credit, Larian changed the mephit fight by moving the mephits. But it's still a bog-standard DOS2 fight. The wood woads have a surface that hurts your party and heals them. You need to change that healing surface into one that harms them. Firebolt, caustic bulb, void bulb -- all enemies are on fire, just clean up.
And now it's a bit better because the woads are not standing on their surface but you would be hard pressed to find some who counts that as their favorite fight in the game.
2. Bot like. I like creativity but I don't like Tab A goes into slot B. (one the reasons I never liked IWD fights as much as I liked BG2 battles) Larian is really pushing "you are supposed to pitch the hag in the pit" in recent communications. We made yeet graphics for a reason. So, how do you get her in the pit -- thorn whip? void bulb? Rothe form? go invisible and push? -- isn't creativity, it's carrying out instructions.
Now I enjoy non-cheat yeets. Drink a strength potion, sneak up on a hook horror and push them off the cliff. Great fun!
And I don't consider that cheese
when it's used consistently with rules. Strength potions are limited resource and stealth is a class feature that comes at cost -- thieves make do with leather or padded armor because they need to sneak quietly. If the rules were implemented properly, that effort would swallow two full action rounds in combat and it involves two contested checks -- sneaking is a contested check and strength is a contested check Again, it's fun, it's the sort of thing you would on table top session.
But go invisible and push isn't that. DnD has rules in place to prevent "go invisible and rule the game" from taking in place. But BG3 hasn't implemented those rules -- instead, pushing is free and it works more often than not, there's no reason not to try it on a bonus round. Where is the mechanism that allows enemies to hear noises made by invisible characters? Chain mail clinks, foot prints appear in mud or (if you roll a one) you just have to sneeze at the wrong moment. And this is something that DnD has been dealing with since 1st edition -- invisibility should not be the tactic that dominates the game.
